The Unseen Holocaust

Since the Roe v. Wade decision 40 years ago, there have been approximately 55,772,015 abortions in the United States.  This is to say nothing of the untold number of babies killed by abortifacient contraceptives and "morning after" chemical abortions like RU-486 and "Plan B."  That translates to roughly 1.5 million abortions per year; over 3,300 per day; 137 per hour, every hour.

Consider:

Total number of people killed in World War II: estimates range from 50 million to 70 million.

Total number of people killed in World War I: 37 million.

Total number of people killed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia: 1.5 million.

Total number of people killed by Stalin: estimates range as high as 60 million.

Total number of people killed in Mao's Cultural Revolution in China: estimates range as high as 20 million.

Total number of soldiers killed in the American Civil War, both Union and Confederate: 625,000.

Number of people who have died of AIDS (as of 2009): 30 million.

Think of it.  Since Roe v. Wade, we have had, in our abortion mills, the equivalent of one Second World War.  One and a half First World Wars.  37 Cambodian genocides.  Almost one Stalin regime.  2.7 Cultural Revolutions.  89 Civil Wars.  1.85 AIDS epidemics.  The only distinguishing feature is that the victims are nameless, utterly defenseless, and have never seen the light of day.

As long as we continue unrepentant in this course, we have no right to expect blessings on this country, and every reason to expect nothing but disaster.

We Cannot Tame the Spirit of Murder

As steady readers of this blog know, on the last day of every year, I publish a review of the year's events.  The first time I did this, I didn't actually come up with the idea until New Year's Eve; but since then, I have kept a running draft all year, updating it every few weeks until it's time for it to go up.

Since I have been doing these Year in Review posts, I have noticed one or two societal trends in America.  A particularly disturbing one is the large number of murder sprees that take place in this country every year.  Consider the ones we have seen during the calendar year 2012:

1. February 27th, Chardon, Ohio: a 17-year-old shooter kills three and wounds three at Chardon High School before being apprehended.

2. March 8th, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania: a shooter kills one and wounds seven at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic before being shot dead.

3. April 2nd, Oakland, California: an expelled former student kills 7 and wounds 3 at Oikos University, a Korean Christian college, and later surrenders to authorities.

4. May 15th, Port St. John, Florida: a woman shoots and kills her own four children, then turns the gun on herself.

5. June 10th, Auburn, Alabama: a shooter who later turns himself in to federal agents kills three and wounds three more at a party near Auburn University.

6. July 20th, Aurora, Colorado: a shooter sets off teargas grenades and opens fire inside a crowded movie theatre, killing 12 and wounding 59 before being apprehended.

7. August 5th, Oak Creek, Wisconsin: gunman murders 6 and wounds 4 at a Sikh temple, including one police officer responding to the scene, before being shot by police and then turning the gun on himself.

8. August 16th, LaPlace, Louisiana: in separate incidents, shooters murder two sheriff's deputies and wound two more, before being wounded themselves and/or taken into custody.

9. August 31st, Old Bridge, New Jersey: an employee at a Pathmark grocery store opens fire, killing two before turning the gun on himself. 

10. October 24th, Downey, California: three people are killed and two wounded at a business and a residence two blocks apart.

11. October 30th, Chicago, Illinois: a woman murders her own seven-year-old son and a five-year-old girl she was babysitting, ostensibly out of rage that her husband left her to do menial work she considered beneath her.

12. November 6th, Fresno, California: an employee at a chicken-processing plant shoots four of his co-workers execution-style, killing two, before turning the gun on himself.

13. November 30th, Casper, Wyoming: a killer using something on the order of a bow and arrow murders his father's girlfriend, then goes to Casper College and murders his father, then kills himself.

14. December 1, Kansas City, Missouri: Jovan Belcher, Kansas City Chiefs linebacker, murders his live-in girlfriend in front of his mother, then goes to Arrowhead Stadium and commits suicide in front of his coach and several others.

15. December 11, Happy Valley, Oregon: a shooter opens fire inside the Clackamas Town Center mall, killing two and wounding one before committing suicide.

16. December 14, Newtown, Connecticut: the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.

Consider that the nation recoiled in horror at the 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago, when seven thugs were murdered by some other thugs in a gang war between Al Capone and Bugs Moran.  Such was the public outrage over this butchery that the Massacre marked the beginning of the end for Capone.  Now, in addition to the criminal-on-criminal home invasions and drive-by shootings among gang-bangers in cities, we have a massacre nearly every month, sometimes more than one in a month, all over the country, and frequently at random.

We may well ask why.  But the better question is: why not?  In a country where the murder of babies in their mothers' wombs is enshrined as a constitutional right, where embryos are created and frozen and experimented on and mingled with the genes of animals, and where euthanasia is legal in several states, an explosion of violence was inevitable.  Did we really think we could make the spirit of murder our servant, drawing curtains and closing doors on it, imprisoning it inside clinics and laboratories and bending it to our will?  We were deluding ourselves.

Come, Lord Jesus!

Why Not Abolish the Universal Franchise?

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money. 

Attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville

I have previously said in this space that there are no political solutions to the problems with this country, only spiritual ones.  But when we start to rebuild after the turmoils and upheavals and perhaps civil war that surely lie ahead, we can't go back to doing business the way we have up to now.  Some political reforms will be in order.  One ought to be to get rid of the income tax, which for too long has served not only as a means of soaking productive citizens but also of tinkering with the social order.  Another one, perhaps, ought to be to abolish the universal franchise.

We all know there was a time in this country when voting was restricted based on race, sex, class, religion, literacy, the ability to pay a poll tax and all sorts of other criteria (many of which boiled down to racial restrictions).  I see no justification for restrictions based on arbitrary factors like race.  But since even now the universal franchise is not absolute, it must be conceded that there is an actual, legitimate point to some voter qualifications.  Convicted felons are disqualified from voting.  Age is a no-brainer.  Citizenship seems no longer to be a no-brainer with some people, but it should be.  I propose adding to that list the requirement that a person own land or other taxable wealth in order to be eligible to vote.  

Why limit the franchise to the propertied classes?  Simple.  Because when the government undertakes a project, they are the ones who have to pay for it.  Why should they not be compensated by possessing the franchise exclusively?  And would this not redound to the common good?  Take control of the purse strings away from those who do not pay for government, and a vast shrinkage would occur.  If you want to see the federal government, for example, restricted to its legitimate functions as enumerated in the Constitution, and functioning frugally into the bargain, a big step in the right direction would be to take away the ability of redistributionist politicians to pander to voters that don't pay taxes.  Why should people who want to benefit from the abuse of the state's coercive police powers by having wealth taken away from its legitimate owners and given to them have any political clout?  To take it away from them would draw a lot of the sting out of the entitlement mentality.  Even if half of Americans want free crap at the expense of others -- as it appears from this month's elections that they do -- at least they would be powerless to attain it.

Isn't the idea of limiting the franchise un-American?  No.  It should be remembered that this country has never been a pure democracy, and in fact the Founding Fathers feared democracy, which they equated with mob rule.  That is the reason for the much-maligned Electoral College and our representative form of government.  Wouldn't it be unfair to certain groups to limit the franchise?  It need not be.  The shrinkage of government bloat that would result from restoring government to its proper limited functions would immediately free up vast amounts of wealth for use in creating even more wealth.  In a country free of stupid government regulations and confiscatory taxation, economic prosperity would abound, and more people would be able to own property.  Of course, one more key element needs to be added to the mix, and that is the rediscovery of our moral compass, without which there can be neither the peace nor the justice that necessarily underlie a successful free market economy.  A moral compass would also impel us to care privately for those who are truly unable to fend for themselves -- and less wealth going down the money pit of big government translates to more for charity.

America must repent and convert, and I'm afraid she has a severe chastisement to endure before she even sees the need to do this.  But once we come out the other side of these trials, we will need to take steps to safeguard ourselves against future backsliding. Abolishing the universal franchise in favor of property owners could be one of these steps.

P.S. In case you're thinking I'm proposing this in the hope of gaining some unfair advantage for myself, be advised that I do not personally own property, so that I am effectively advocating my own disenfranchisement.

Dead Nation Walking

Yesterday's election should have been a no-brainer.  That Obama got into the White House in the first place on his prior record is bad enough; but that a majority of voters should re-elect him after he has spent the last four years promoting intrinsic evils, running this country into the ground, pandering to her enemies and openly opposing everything she stands for shows how far gone we are.  

Stark reality: the majority of voters in today's America simply do not recognize evil when they see it.  We are surrounded by evil, at home, at school, at work, on television, in popular culture, until it seems normal.  We take vice for virtue, and virtue for vice, or, at best, a form of mental illness.  We are mired in habitual sin, especially lust.  We equate the pursuit of sensual pleasures to the pursuit of happiness, and sensual pleasures are now more important to us than life itself.  Not only are we willing to kill ourselves and others in the name of pleasure; we will tolerate even the extinction of the human race.  In today's America, formerly illicit liaisons enjoy the protection of law.  Sodomitical unions take the place of natural relations, and concubinage takes the place of stable families.  And the land is awash in the blood of the unborn.  According to the Guttmacher Institute, there were 1.21 million abortions in this country just in the year 2008.  That is more than the total number of Americans killed in the Civil War and both World Wars.  According to the same source, there were nearly 50 million abortions in the United States between 1973 and 2008.  That approaches the total number of people who perished in World War II.  These figures do not even take into account the numberless souls who are kept out of existence by contraceptives, many of which are abortifacients.

In the face of all of which the Catholic Church in America has remained silent.  For decades, with very few exceptions, American priests and bishops have not uttered a peep about the tsunami of spiritual sewage bearing down on their flocks.  The results are not surprising.  28% of women who have abortions identify themselves as Catholic.  98% of sexually experienced Catholic women have committed the sin of contraception.  Catholics are indistinguishable from non-Catholics in the rate of divorce.  Half of Catholic voters voted for Obama.     

America has turned her back on God and His law, and now He has decisively allowed her to be turned over to her enemies.  This is God’s judgment on the United States, because she will not stop offending Him.  And since the United States will now no longer offer refuge to the oppressed or keep the world’s barbarian warlords in check, it is also His judgment on the whole world for its sins.

There are no political solutions to our problems, only spiritual ones.  The words of Our Lady of Fatima are no less true now than they were 95 years ago.  We must repent, stop sinning, and do penance.  And we must pray the Rosary.  Every day.  Without fail.

All you Dominican saints, whose feast day is today, pray for us.

Postpone the Election?

The liberals want Obama to postpone the election, using as an excuse the destruction wrought by Hurricane Sandy in a part of the country that is dominated by liberals.  Can it be done?

Not legally.  Article II, § (Section) 1 of the U.S. Constitution spells out how the President is to be elected.  Clause 3 provides:

The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.

Congress' determination of this time and day is enshrined in the United States Code.  3 U.S.C. § 1 provides:

The electors of President and Vice President shall be appointed, in each State, on the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November, in every fourth year succeeding every election of a President and Vice President.

Article II, § 2 spells out the powers and duties of the President:  

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.

Notice that, pursuant to the foregoing, the President has nothing to say about when a presidential election takes place.  Obama has zero legal authority to change the date of the election.  That any number of Americans should want him to do something so entirely despotic and downright unconstitutional is rather disconcerting. 

We have a pretty huge anti-precedent for the suspension of a presidential election.  We are talking here about a thing that even Abraham Lincoln did not dare to do during the Civil War.  Consider: in 1864, casualties were astronomical; the Union suffered one military disaster after another; anti-war feeling in the North ran high;  and Lincoln's re-election seemed all but impossible.  When, in the whole history of the world, had a nation ever held an election during a civil war?  Yet the President who went as far as to suspend habeas corpus did not try to postpone, let alone cancel, the 1864 election, even though he believed the Union would not be restored if he lost.  Is it possible he thought about it?  Sure.  Lincoln was not squeamish about setting aside the Constitution when  he considered it necessary.  But it is certain that he did not try it.  If a Civil War upon which the survival of the nation depended was not an excuse to suspend a presidential election, how can a hurricane be, even one as terrible as Sandy?

Ah, but it will be argued, throughout his term, Obama has proven himself no slave to constitutional punctilio.  From Obamacare to bailouts to Benghazigate, this has been a lawless, mendacious administration from start to finish; why, it will be asked, should Obama suddenly start respecting the Constitution?  For that matter, the problem predates Obama: it has now been many decades since the federal government confined itself to its enumerated powers; an awful lot of what it now does on a daily basis is unconstitutional.

But if the administration should try to hold onto power by force -- and trying to suspend a presidential election would amount to that -- does it have the backing it would need?  Can anyone launch a coup without the support of the military?  Does this administration in fact have the support of the military?  Maybe it has the support of some big brass personalities who are more bureaucrats than soldiers; but what about the rank and file?  After the Fort Hood terrorist massacre; after the adding of insult to that injury by designating it "workplace violence"; after the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and the raft of "sensitivity training" that came in its wake; after the Benghazi attack, when it became apparent that the rule of "no man left behind" is vacated under this administration: what must the rank and file soldiers think?  We saw that two former Navy SEALs in Benghazi disobeyed direct orders NOT to defend the consulate.  Is the willingness to disobey orders confined to those two men?  Soldiers are trained to follow orders, and face a court-martial for not doing so; yet there is still no obligation to obey illegal orders. 

Let the election go ahead, full steam.  Obama does not even have the power to be a speed bump.

Benghazi

Some things to remember on Election Day.

On September 11, 2012, a horde of terrorists assaulted the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, murdering our ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens; U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith; and two former Navy SEALs, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.       This attack coincided not only with the 11th anniversary of 9/11, but also with the storming of our embassy in Cairo.  Aided and abetted by the media, the administration portrayed these outrages as having been provoked by a purportedly anti-Islamic film uploaded to YouTube, the producer of which was rounded up and tossed into jail.   The Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, stated that no rescue operation was launched because it was too unclear exactly what was happening. 

This was on Thursday of last week, when we learned that, not only did the White House know the attack was premeditated, and who perpetrated it, but that they were receiving a live video feed of the attack from a drone.  The White House knew what was happening, while it was happening.    Then Friday, we learned that operatives at the CIA annex in Benghazi were not only thrice denied permission to go in and defend the consulate; they were specifically ordered to stand down, and were denied military assistance.   

Two former Navy SEALs, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, defied the order to stand down, along with at least two others.  Tyrone Woods singled out the source of mortar fire on the consulate, and painted it with his laser in the expectation that a missile would come in and take out the target.  "Expectation" is the key word here.  There would be no point in painting a target with a laser unless you were counting on a missile, especially since, by painting the target, you give away your position.  Tyrone Woods had reason to believe a missile would be forthcoming.  No missile came.  The mortars were not taken out.  Tyrone Woods was killed by mortar fire.

The Obama administration's response to this casus belli rises only from the mendacious to the buffoonish.  When the bodies of our slain embassy personnel were brought back to the United States, their families -- who did not plan to comment publicly until the White House's real-time knowledge became known -- were nonplussed at the apparent lack of concern on the part of the President and top members of his administration.  To the father of Tyrone Woods, the Vice President of the United States said: "Did your son always have balls the size of cue balls?"

How appropriate that the Obama flag logo has as much class as the Vice President, and looks like blood smears.

The Party of Civil Rights...?

Gov. George Wallace, Democrat, tries to prevent desegregation at the University of Alabama in 1963.

In the age of slavery, the Democrat Party was the home of those who supported, or were willing to tolerate, slavery.

After the Civil War, the Democrat Party was the home of white supremacists, paramilitary groups dedicated to the disenfranchisement of blacks, and politicians who enacted black codes and Jim Crow laws.

The Democrat Party was the home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who, in 1942, ordered the forced internment of more than 100,000 Japanese and Americans of Japanese ancestry.  (It was Republican President Ronald Reagan who apologized for this action in 1988.)

The Democrat Party was the home of all but one of a bloc of 18 Senators who fought hard to kill the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  Some of these Senators -- especially former Ku Klux Klansman Robert Byrd of West Virginia -- continued for decades as respected and prestigious members of the Party.

The Democrat Party was the home of Lyndon Johnson who signed the Civil Rights Act into law with one hand, and with the other hand created the Great Society, and with it the burgeoning modern welfare state, which has destroyed the black family and trapped many blacks in moral and economic servitude for decades.

The Democrat Party is the home of Barack Hussein Obama, fanatical opponent of the right to life of unborn babies, and launcher of perhaps the most blatant and explicit assault on religious freedom in our time.

Yes, indeed...the party of civil rights.

Dining with the Enemy

Sorry, but there is nothing good about this invitation of Obama to the Al Smith Dinner. Of course it is scandalous, and no amount of intellectual gymnastics can make it otherwise. 

This is not the same as pouring hot coals upon the enemy's head by doing him good. Cardinal Dolan is not bringing a starving Obama in off the streets. Nor is it the same as Jesus reaching out to prostitutes and tax collectors. The prostitutes and tax collectors believed the Gospel and repented, whereas Obama has made it quite plain that he intends to continue on his present course. What this is is the extending of a gratuitous and completely undeserved honor to an enemy of the Church. It is the latest in a long line of Catholic clergymen cozying up to unfriendly and even pro-abortion politicians over the last half-century. It is one more log on the bonfire of cynicism, and a source of distress and confusion to the faithful. 

Obama is at war against the Catholic Church, and has proven it by his actions. Why do so many in the Church not believe him? I guarantee Obama and his minions view this as a sign of weakness, and have even more contempt for the Cardinal Archbishop of New York, and the Church, than they did before. This is the way to prolong the war, not to win it. 

 And how can the bishops hope to rally Catholics in the pews against enemies of the Church whom they invite as honored guests at a dinner? William F. Buckley put the problem very succinctly 42 years ago, ruminating about the failure of Catholics to repel the forces of abortion in New York state (Inveighing We Will Go, New York, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1972, pp. 326-328): 

When the time came to rally protests against permissive abortion laws, the troops were simply not there. It is very difficult for a Catholic fundamentalist to go on about Murder, while his Cardinal is photographed speaking amiably to the leader of the Assembly that passed the abortion bill a few months before. How would it have appeared if, let us say, Cardinal Spellman of New York had been seen shaking hands and chatting amiably with Martin Bormann? The answer is that Cardinal Spellman would have avoided doing any such thing. And that Cardinal Cooke’s willingness to traffic with legislators from New York who voted for the abortion bill seems to suggest that New York Catholics must regard permissive abortion policies as something less than the kind of thing that inspires mutinous relations between the subject and the state. 

We are obliged to be civil to our enemies, to pray for them, and to be generous to them in their need. But we are not obliged to be intimate and chummy with them. In fact, when being intimate and chummy saps our will to stand up for the Faith, surely we would be obliged NOT to.

If Only We'd Listened

This cartoon was produced by Harding College (now Harding University) in Searcy, Arkansas in 1948.  Ask yourself whether the evils warned against 66 years ago in this cartoon have not now come to pass.

We can't say we weren't warned.  If only we'd listened.


How's that snake oil tasting, Obamatons?

Venerable Fulton J. Sheen

On the same day as the announcement that Obamacare has survived in the Supreme Court, we receive the news of the decree that Servant of God Fulton J. Sheen was possessed of heroic virtues, and thus will henceforth be Venerable Fulton J. Sheen. 

Unless there is a Good Friday in your life, there can be no Easter Sunday.

-- Ven. Fulton J. Sheen

Planning, Working, and Praying

A tip from the peerless Father Erik has led to about an hour's reading on a subject not inappropriate for Memorial Day: one of America's most colorful and successful generals, George S. Patton.  In view of Patton's work, beliefs, sayings, and general outlook on life, it was perhaps a mercy that he did not long survive the troops who had given their lives under his command, or live to see the fruits of their hard-won victories squandered.  It is not hard to guess what his take would have been on the West's increasing post-war confusion, or the muddle of the Vietnam War, in which his own son, George Patton IV, served as a general, and which our politicians willed to lose. It is tempting to meditate on what would happen if, by some miracle of modern medicine, the elder Patton had lived long enough to find himself under the overlordship of the present occupant of the White House.

One notable incident of Patton's career in the European Theater has become distorted in our sissified, politically correct times, and needs to be set straight.  The 1970 movie Patton contains a scene in which the general is shown bullying a chaplain into praying for good weather for killing Germans, against the chaplain's conscience.  The chaplain in question -- Msgr. James H. O'Neill, Chief Chaplain of the Third Army -- told a rather different story in an account he wrote in 1950, which was published 21 years later in Review of the News, when Msgr. O'Neill was a retired brigadier general.  He describes General Patton as a devout and practicing Episcopalian, possessing "all the traits of military leadership, fortified by genuine trust in God, intense love of country, and high faith In the American soldier"; he describes himself, the allegedly bullied chaplain, as not at all reluctant to carry out his commander's wishes in the matter of the prayer.

The story begins, interestingly enough, on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, December 8, 1944.  Disturbed by the unrelenting, torrential rain that hampered his war effort, Patton called up the Chief Chaplain and asked him if there was a prayer for good weather.  Not finding an appropriate prayer, the chaplain undertook to compose his own:

Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great goodness, to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend. Grant us fair weather for Battle. Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call upon Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory, and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies and establish Thy justice among men and nations.

Chaplain O'Neill typed the final draft of this prayer on a 5"x3" filing card, along with a Christmas message to the troops from Patton, and presented it to the general, who affixed his signature to the Christmas message and ordered the printing of a quarter of a million copies for distribution to every man in the Third Army.

Then Patton asked O'Neill a question that would probably get a commanding officer in today's Army court-martialed: how much praying was being done in the Third Army?  When told that not much prayer was going on, Patton said:

Chaplain, I am a strong believer in prayer. There are three ways that men get what they want; by planning, by working, and by praying. Any great military operation takes careful planning, or thinking. Then you must have well-trained troops to carry it out: that's working. But between the plan and the operation there is always an unknown. That unknown spells defeat or victory, success or failure. It is the reaction of the actors to the ordeal when it actually comes. Some people call that getting the breaks; I call it God. God has His part, or margin in everything. That's where prayer comes in. Up to now, in the Third Army, God has been very good to us. We have never retreated; we have suffered no defeats, no famine, no epidemics. This is because a lot of people back home are praying for us. We were lucky in Africa, in Sicily, and in Italy. Simply because people prayed. But we have to pray for ourselves, too. A good soldier is not made merely by making him think and work. There is something in every soldier that goes deeper than thinking or working--it's his "guts." It is something that he has built in there: it is a world of truth and power that is higher than himself. Great living is not all output of thought and work. A man has to have intake as well. I don't know what you it, but I call it Religion, Prayer, or God.

Whereupon the general ordered the chaplain to draft a training letter to all the chaplains on the importance of prayer.  "We've got to get not only the chaplains but every man in the Third Army to pray. We must ask God to stop these rains. These rains are that margin that hold defeat or victory."

So Chaplain O'Neill got to work on Training Letter No. 5.  Both it and the prayer cards were distributed to the troops in the Third Army between December 12-14.  On December 16th, the Germans, favored by the poor weather, launched their final offensive of the war through the Ardennes: the Battle of the Bulge.  On the 19th, Patton and his Third Army rushed to Bastogne to meet it; and on the 20th came perfect weather for wave after wave of Allied air attacks on the Germans.  The prayer for good weather was answered, and the Germans were defeated.

What if George S. Patton had lived to observe the state of this country in 2012?  No doubt his prescription would include, among other things, planning, working and -- above all -- praying.  Especially praying: and to hell with any executive orders, acts of Congress, federal regulations, Supreme Court decisions or any other government directives to the contrary.  

Penance, Penance, Penance!

In what should come as no surprise, Obama has come out in favor of same-sex "marriage."

But not content to prostitute the prestige of his office, he added -- speaking as an alleged "practicing Christian":

[O]bviously this position may put us at odds with others, but when we think about our faith, the thing at root (is) not just Christ's sacrifice on our behalf, but the golden rule, treat others the way you want to be treated.

Are we to understand the current occupant of the White House to be saying that sodomy is a sacrament, equivalent to the Sacrifice of Calvary?

In all the years of our nation's life, who could have imagined that the American people would put a man at the head of our government capable of uttering a blasphemy of this magnitude?  Nor is this an anomaly in a country that for forty years has been steeped in abortion, contraception, promiscuity, concubinage and the celebration of homosexual acts.  How can this country expect to escape divine retribution?

We always have a duty to keep ourselves in the state of grace, but most of all during this time when the forces of hell are on the march.  Now more than ever we need to frequent the Sacraments of Confession and Communion.

Here is where you can order this:

Time for us to order a lot of them, distribute them, and repair with them to the nearest tabernacle.  Time for us to pray the Rosary every day.  Time for us to do penance.  Penance.  Penance.  We certainly shall not escape it.

The Home Front, Frozen in Time

Take a good, close look at this picture.  Click on it so you can see it better.  With the sharp detail and superb color, it's almost like you're right there.  Would you believe that every single person in this picture is either dead or very old?

You can't tell by the excellent quality of the photo.  We are used to looking at either black and white or grainy photos from this era.  But if you look closely at clothing, hairstyles and technological devices, you can see that this Kodachrome transparency was snapped decades ago.  October 1942, to be exact: at the North American Aviation plant in Inglewood, California.  These plant workers are watching a lunchtime airshow.  

For more amazing images from wartime America, see here.


H/T Adrienne's Corner.  (By the way, American aviation hero Pappy Boyington was from Adrienne's neck of the woods.)

Liberty Enlightening the World

The Centennial Light, Livermore, California, the world's longest-burning light bulb.  This picture provides a good view of the mechanism of this lamp, as well as its beauty and careful hand-craftsmanship.  (Source.)

This light bulb hangs from the ceiling at Fire Station 6 on East Avenue in Livermore, California, where it serves as a night light over the fire trucks.  Hand-blown with a carbon filament, it was manufactured at the Shelby Electric Company in Shelby, Ohio and first installed at Livermore's fire department horse cart house on L Street in 1901.  It has been moved twice since then; since its most recent move, in 1976, it has been hooked up to its own independent power source, and has burned continuously without being turned off or going out.

Consider this.  The year this light bulb was installed was the same year that Queen Victoria died.  It was the year President William McKinley was assassinated, and Teddy Roosevelt took his place in the White House.  In 1901, Leo XIII was Pope in Rome; Winston Churchill was just beginning his extraordinary career in the House of Commons; the Panama Canal was still under construction; Douglas MacArthur was still a cadet at West Point; radio and motion pictures were still new inventions; the Wright Brothers' first flight at Kitty Hawk was still two years away, and it would be another seven years before Henry Ford's Model T would begin to roll off the assembly line.  Since 1901, two world wars have ravaged the planet; most of the world's monarchies have toppled; the Soviet Union rose and fell; the Cold War raged; man took flight, first across continents and oceans, then to the moon and back; telephones, televisions, and above all computers have brought the entire world right into our homes.  Through it all, this bulb has continued to shine.   True, the Centennial Light is down to only a fraction of its original brightness; yet even its manufacturers, who prided themselves on making the best lamps in the world, could hardly have imagined how long this light's working life would continue.

Nor is the Centennial Light the only bulb possessed of extraordinary longevity.  Others have been documented as having functioned for many decades, including one that has shone since 1908.  Who knows how many other bulbs have worked for decades that nobody has documented?  Truly, the incandescent light bulb is among the most useful devices ever come up with in the history of human innovation.  

So it makes perfect sense that the current socialist administration, whose ultimate goal is the moral and material enslavement of Americans, should make war upon the incandescent bulb and try to cram vastly inferior fluorescent bulbs down our throats.  

Let's face the facts about fluorescent bulbs -- and particularly the spaghetti bulbs meant to be installed in place of incandescent ones.  Like virtually all other things liberals are always trying to force-feed us, fluorescent bulbs stink.  They take forever to reach their full brightness, and their full brightness isn't much to write home about.  They're costly. They're full of mercury, which makes them dangerous.  They're worthless in an Easy-Bake Oven.  And you can't just throw them out when they burn out, like you can incandescent bulbs.  

Fortunately, there is still a company in this country that manufactures incandescent bulbs.  America's entrepreneurial spirit is still alive and well at Newcandescent, which legally manufactures incandescent bulbs.  And they say their bulbs will last 7 years.  

I don't usually plug products on this blog, but I'm glad there's somebody still manufacturing incandescent bulbs in this country.  Still, there is one thing that really sticks in my craw about it.  Even if you are a fan of fluorescent bulbs, if you are a patriotic American and lover of liberty, you must acknowledge that greater principles are at stake than the preferability of incandescent over fluorescent.  The fact that Newcandescent had to (a) redesign incandescent bulbs to comply with new federal requirements, and (b) apply to the Department of Energy for permission to manufacture the newly designed bulbs ought to fill you with rage.     

Did you ever think we'd reach a point in this country when American citizens would have to apply for permission from the federal government to manufacture incandescent bulbs on American soil?  Was this what the Founding Fathers had in mind?  Is there some provision of the Constitution, written, perhaps, in invisible ink, that gives the feds this authority?  Was this what generations of patriots shed their blood in distant lands to protect?

It's a shame to have to admit it, but the America upon which the Centennial Light first shone 111 years ago was a much freer one than the one we live in today.  Our first order of business in this country is to straighten ourselves up as individuals, governing our passions, recovering our Christian morals and living according to right reason.   Without this, nothing else will work.  Our second order of business is to throw out the socialist bums that have seized power in this country at every level of government.  Our third order of business is to reduce the federal government to its original constitutionally mandated functions, and every other level of government to reasonable proportions in accordance with state constitutions, common sense, and the principle of subsidiarity.  And in the meantime, we should support entrepreneurial efforts like Newcandescent that prevent the useful things that improve our lives from being cast into oblivion by socialist elites.

H/T Les Femmes - The Truth.   

"Easy" Street

America has now reached the point where our debt equals our GDP.  But we can't say we weren't warned.  From 63 years ago:

H/T Dr. Sanity.

Remember Pearl Harbor

This post goes up seventy years to the minute after the Japanese began their attack on Pearl Harbor.  This 70th anniversary is the last one to be marked by the Pearl Harbor Survivors' Association: due to the extreme old age, infirmity and immobility of its dwindling membership (approximately 175, mostly in their 90s), the Association is officially disbanding this month.  Only about 125 survivors are expected to attend this year's commemoration at the scene of the pivotal and defining moment of their young lives.

A Japanese camera captured that moment on the morning of December 7, 1941.  The images of Japanese planes, tiny yet unmistakable, can be seen passing over Ford Island.  The U.S.S. West Virginia and U.S.S. Oklahoma, on the far side of the island, have just sustained torpedo hits. 

One of the iconic images of the Pearl Harbor attack: the U.S.S. Arizona burns.  The explosion of the Arizona's forward magazines claimed 1,177 of the 2,403 American lives lost at Pearl Harbor.  The crew of the nearby U.S.S. Tennessee attempts to fend off burning oil with fire hoses.  

The first two chaplains to die in World War II -- one Protestant minister, one Catholic priest -- died at Pearl Harbor.  Protestant chaplain of the Arizona, Capt. Thomas Leroy Kirkpatrick, sprang to action in sick bay as soon as the attacks commenced.  Sick bay was so near to the forward magazines that he was killed almost instantly in the great explosion while ministering to the wounded.  Chaplain Kirkpatrick still lies with his crewmates in their sunken ship at the bottom of the harbor.

Chaplain Kirkpatrick's clock was recovered from the wreck of the Arizona, the hands frozen at the moment the forward magazines exploded.  

The U.S.S. Oklahoma, capsized and burning.  429 men perished aboard the Oklahoma.

The total number of the Oklahoma's dead would have reached 441 if it were not for Fr. Aloysius Schmitt, Lieutenant Junior Grade, Acting Chaplain.

On December 7, 1941, the young priest from St. Lucas, Iowa, had only been ordained for six years, appointed a chaplain for two and a half years, and had celebrated his 32nd birthday only three days earlier.  Did he have any suspicion that that was to be his last birthday, and indeed almost his last day on earth?  Yet although death came to Fr. Schmitt suddenly, it did not find him unprepared, nor even without Viaticum: when the Japanese attack began, he had just finished celebrating Mass.  

When disaster struck, Fr. Schmitt went to sick bay to minister to the wounded and dying. Mission Capodanno gives the following moving account of what happened next:

When the Oklahoma was struck and water poured into her hold, the ship began to list and roll over. Many men were trapped. Schmitt found his way -- with other crew members -- to a compartment where only a small porthole provided enough space to escape.

Chaplain Schmitt helped other men, one by one, to crawl to safety. When it became his turn, the chaplain tried to get through the small opening. As he struggled to exit through the porthole, he became aware that others had come into the compartment from which he was trying to escape. As he realized that the water was rising rapidly and that escape would soon be impossible, he insisted on being pushed back through the hole so that he could help others who could get through the opening more easily. Accounts from eyewitnesses that have been published in the Arizona Memorial newsletter relate that the men protested, saying that he would never get out alive, but he insisted, "Please let go of me, and may God bless you all."

Fr. Schmitt, martyr of charity, was posthumously awarded the Navy/Marine Corps Medal for his selfless bravery, which saved the lives of twelve crewmen who otherwise would have been trapped in the sinking ship.

Remember Pearl Harbor, soon to pass from living memory.  Remember and do not forget.

Ten September 11ths Ago

Funny how we always remember exactly where we were and what we were doing the moment some earth-shattering event takes place.

On September 11, 2001, I was working in the public defender's office in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.  I was pretty self-absorbed that morning.  I did not turn the TV on while getting ready for work (I had TV then) and in the car I listened to a station that played '80s music.  At one point, as I was getting close to the office, the DJ said he would do his best to continue with the 8 straight hits (or whatever it was), but he was pretty shaken by what had just happened, as he was sure we all were.  I wondered what he was talking about, but it didn't occur to me to switch to talk radio to find out.  I pulled into the parking lot, got out of the car, and let myself in through the back door.  Just outside the door to my office, a bunch of the support staff were huddled around the desk of my secretary, Lori, listening to the radio. 

"What's happened?" I said.

"The World Trade Center is gone," Lori said.

My mind went immediately to the first attack on the Towers in 1993.  I'm pretty sure the first thing I thought actually came out of my mouth: "So they've finished the job" -- "they" being the bunch responsible for the 1993 attack, or their compatriots.  Despite the rumors that began immediately about domestic terrorists (the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing was still fresh in our memories), the first instinct was to prove correct, as it usually does.  A thing like this could only be an act of war.

By the time I learned what was happening, about two and a quarter hours had passed since the first plane crashed into the Towers.  It was almost an hour and a half since the third plane crashed into the Pentagon.  The plane crash in Shanksville, Pennsylvania had just taken place an hour before.  It seemed likely at that moment that as many as 50,000 people might have perished in just the Towers alone -- more than 20 times the number of people who died in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that had taken place almost exactly 60 years earlier, and to which parallels were being instantly drawn.  Although -- thankfully -- the number of slain on 9/11 proved to be only a fraction of that 50,000, it was still a grievous total that greatly surpassed Pearl Harbor.

Of course our first instinct was to glue ourselves to the news and try to take in these stupefying events.  But we had court that day, and clients to see, and business to transact, and hearings to prepare for, and life had to carry on.  But every minute we weren't in hearings or attending to our work, we were talking about the attacks, and what they meant, and what would happen next.  It is a thing that cannot be understood except by those who lived through it: the outrage -- not only over the attacks themselves, but over the footage of Arabs dancing in the streets in celebration at the murders of thousands of innocent people -- the uncertainty; the realization that we ourselves might die in this new war -- for it was clearly war -- our impotence as individuals and littleness in the face of malign forces beyond our imagining; our attitude of defiance in the face of that impotence and our clinging to God and to each other in our littleness.  

The world utterly changed on that bright September morning.  Though it would be more accurate to say that the change in the world was manifest only on that morning: the change really came the day an extra-national, fanatical movement conceived the idea of using passenger jets as missiles to attack our military and commercial and government centers.  On that day, a new fruit from hell, long in the growing, became ripe for the picking.  That was the real day the world changed; only we who stood outside the tiny circle of conspirators could not know it.  Perhaps the world has changed yet again without our knowing it.  Are we ready to face it?

9/11 was a shot across our bow.  Thankfully, nothing like it has happened again to us in the intervening 10 years, thanks to the brave men and women who defend this country.  It galvanized us and woke us up; but sadly, we have gone back to sleep.  Even the triple catastrophe of New York, Washington and Shanksville has failed to make us straighten up and fly right.  We have proven ourselves more willing than ever to surrender our liberty to the government.  Our moral confusion and cultural degeneracy have increased.  Who, on September 11, 2001, could have imagined that by the tenth anniversary of that dreadful day, we would have submitted ourselves to the government of the enemies of all that this country has ever stood for?

On this 10th anniversary of 9/11, we should pray for the dead and their families; for the safety of our armed forces; and for our repentance and conversion as a nation.

President Reagan Commemorates D-Day

President Reagan's speech at Point du Hoc, June 6, 1984 -- the 40th anniversary of D-Day.

Never, Never, Never, Never Give Up

...however tempted one may be.

We have suffered a total and unmitigated defeat...We are in the presence of a disaster of the first magnitude...we have sustained a defeat without a war, the consequences of which will travel far with us along our road...we have passed an awful milestone in our history, when...the terrible words have for the time being been pronounced...: "Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting." And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.

Winston Churchill in the House of Commons, denouncing the Munich Agreement, 1938

Time to take the last half of the last line to heart.

America

Well, it was a nice country while it lasted.

For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, is taking away from Jerusalem and from Judah stay and staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water; the mighty man and the soldier, the judge and the prophet, the diviner and the elder, the captain of fifty and the man of rank, the counselor and the skilful magician and the expert in charms.  And I will make boys their princes, and babes shall rule over them.  And the people will oppress one another, every man his fellow and every man his neighbor; the youth will be insolent to the elder, and the base fellow to the honorable.

Isaiah 3:1-5